Disclaimer
I own only some things in this story. All things that are not mine I give credit to.
Prologue
I
It was a nice day in Pallet town that day. The sun shone upon the grasses, illuminating them so they shone bright. On the outskirts of the city lay a white washed house with green shutters. The paint was peeling in many places, and if you got close to it (which very few did) you could smell lead from the paint. It looked abandoned from the outside except for a car that sat waiting in the driveway to be driven.
Inside, though the house was not anywhere close to being empty, or normal. Inside, the house was quite dysfunctional. Delilah Ketchum, a stay at home mother whom, was to quote her, a very good mother. Her son, Ash, was never home, for he was usually off on his own little adventures. Today, Delilah was home alone. Delilah sat in an orange armchair with rips and tears in it. Foam fuzzies surrounded the chair because of wear and tear. She had remembered this chair from the old days. The days when her and Sampson were together, but now Sampson had disappeared. He had gone off somewhere far, he had been away for quite a while now. 11 years, to be exact. He had left her to raise up her child alone.
Delilah was reading today's newspaper to see the latest headlines. On the first page was a story of a murder. Nothing out of the ordinary, but when she read further, she saw something that shocked her very much. The headline read: MYSTERY MURDERER STILL AT LARGE with a caption at the side of a graphic picture of a dead person lying on the floor with a hole torn through its abdomen. She read further for more details.
In a small town outside of Pewter city, a twenty-three year old businessman was found dead in his own house (see left insert). His name is unknown at the time. The way he was found was repulsive. His face was covered in slash marks and his body was ripped apart. His internal organs were disturbed and he was left in bathing in his own blood. Signs of a struggle were found but there was no trace that anything had done anything to the man. His wife says, "I was devastated to find him in this state. I would have never guessed that something could happen to him. Why did it have to happen to me?" This is the third time something like this has happened. Forensics are continuing to search the house for clues. As always, the Kantonese Valley News will keep you posted on updates on this story.
Delilah suddenly realized something. Her child had not returned last night. What if he was the next victim of the killer, she thought. What if he was just outside getting mauled by this thing? Oh, please be all right; please be all right…come home today, please! Don't make me worry like this anymore. I am a good mother; I don't deserve to be treated like this, having to worry every second of my life. This can't happen to me; I'm…overreacting. Nothing happened to him; he will come home soon. Or he won't and he will stay on his little adventure and never come back to his own mother. Delilah sighed and leaned back in her chair. She could hear the Spearow tweeting that had gotten caught in her attic when she had left the window open.
A couple of hours later, by the comfort of the fire, Delilah read more of the newspaper, it talked about sports, industries, the stock market, nothing interesting. Yawning, she opened the fireplace and cast the paper in to watch it burn.
II
A couple miles outside of Pewter City, a black figure sat on the sidewalk. It almost looked like a shadow, except for its red eyes, gleaming like gems in the morning sun. Its eyes flicked back and forth, scanning the street for anything interesting. Its yellow ringed tail flicked as it moved one of its paws to kick at the dust. The shadow was an Umbreon. And it was a hungry Umbreon.
The food it had overnight was not sufficient. Killing humans was just for fun, not for food. They did not digest well in Umbreon. Now he has looking for some Ratatta, and the alleyways were a good place to find them, for they had a certain fetish for trash.
The Umbreon, named Azreal, turned his head to a small noise behind him. All he saw was a dead Ratatta slowly rotting on the ground. The wafting aroma of the rotting meat reached his nose. It was strong enough to make anyone turn away, but not someone who had to deal with it for long enough. The Ratatta had done it probably so anyone who wanted to go there would want to turn away and never go there again.
An overturned trashcan sat in the middle of the alleyway, giving it its charming stench. It also made a good hiding place for Pokemon hiding from hunting Pokemon, but Azreal was no fool. He knew exactly where they were hiding.
When he got near the trashcan, Azreal could hear anguished squeals of, "it's to dark in here" and "stop that, you're making too much noise". Nonetheless, the noise continued. From inside, Azreal could hear the mother say, "I will check outside to make sure no one is out there." A couple of seconds later, the can rattled and a Ratatta came out. Its face froze in horror as it looked up.
"Who are you," it asked. Arial looked down.
"Whom do you think," he answered. "Someone who is very hungry and wants to eat." With no further ado, he grabbed it in its mouth and dragged it over into a corner. He tore off pieces of the skin in strips, putting them aside and then biting into the sweet flesh. It felt good in his mouth as he chewed on it maliciously.
The trashcan brought forth another rattle and another Ratatta showed its face. Probably coming to avenge its mother, but it will not last. It will be more food for me. And I'd be happier with an army of them; I'd kill them all and have the biggest feast of my life. So come forth, all of you, and I will eat you all. He smiled to himself as he kicked the other Ratatta into the wall and was satisfied as its leg cracked.
After he was satisfied with the food, he walked out of the alley and sat on a sidewalk. He watched as people walked by, most looking suspiciously as they went. People are so very odd. I don't even know why they still survive today, not even following the traditional rules of the wild. Anyway, why did I kill that guy? He was a normal person, I guess for a human. But why did I kill him? Because he was annoying. For the same reason I killed everybody else, but why is it so that it is so bad that when you kill a person, you must be killed? When you kill another Pokemon, it doesn't matter. No one cares about it. I don't see why it is so important.
While he was thinking, a person walked by him. The person looked at him suspiciously as she walked by. Azreals' black fur prickled as he watched her go by. People scared him like that, and those kind of people were the kind of people he killed. The people that were suspicious of him. Those kind of things that reminded him of Mercurius.
Mercurius is, and was his enemy. Mercurius was his rival. He was a white wizard, a wizard that uses magic to defend. Azreal was a black wizard, and I think you can tell where they got into a bad fight. White wizard did not necessarily like black wizards. Their conflicts had gone on for centuries.
Azreal walked down the alley, looking from side to side. The apartments that he walked by looked pretty dark and dismal. They also looked deserted. Azreal needed somewhere to sleep, for it was a cold night out and it looked like it was going to rain. He stopped at a possibly inviting place to stay the night. In an instant he knew what was wrong with it. A cold feeling in his gut told him to stay away, and keep away. There was something here that would not be good for him. Probably the iron bars on the windows. Iron made even the best wizards feel susceptible and weak. He walked on in this search.
III
Mercurius sat in a different alley, feeling a weird feeling in his gut too. Something was not right here. The last time he felt this was when Azreal was near, very near. In fact, it was when they were fighting together about a conflict they had. This feeling had to mean that Azreal was near here. He's probably up to no good, no doubt. Hopefully I'll be able to stop him before he does something really bad and poses a threat against this city. I'm probably too late already.
He looked down the alley to see two lanky built figures dragging their feet along the ground. They were coming toward him, slowly but not really carefully. Can I trust these people not to tell anyone that a silver colored Pikachu is sitting in the alley? Or do I have to run away from these people? Avoiding his better judgment, he stayed where he was, even though he had a burning desire to run away. As the people got closer, Mercurius could see that they wore tattered shirts with patches on them and dirty jeans with holes in them. These people were the people of the slums; the people who never had enough money to even buy something at the dollar shop. The ones that had no high school education or half of one. The ones that always asked questions and never let you answer them, the ones that were the most annoying, Mercurius thought, somehow it seemed that all Pokémon thought humans are annoying. They also might just go around telling people that there is a Pikachu that has the fur the color of silver, and start to have people coming from all around town to see me. This was the same reason he had to leave last time. Some people told a lot of other people and then a group was formed, all of them looking for him. If Azreal had been there, then that would not be good. If he was as smart as he said, he would have been found.
The men now were looking down at him. He saw the sun gleaming on him and gasped. "Look at his color! He's silver," one of them exclaimed, a shocked look on his face.
"You're right, he is! Look at him gleam in the sunlight," the other one said, looking at the other in disbelief. After a moment, the same person looked at the other with a grin on his face and said, "we can sell him for lots of money!" They both grinned.
"We can let Sam know about this, he'd be happy to hear that we found a rare shiny Pikachu, wouldn't he," the one that spoke first asked.
"Yeah, come on! Let's go," the other person said to the one that spoke first. The duo ran off in the other direction, then stopped, and came back.
"Now," one of them said to Mercurius, "you stay here and be a good little guy, and don't run away. We just want to make some money, and we're poor. We need all the money we can get." Of course I will run away. I'm not going to just sit here and let you skin me and get a lot of money for yourselves. I'm not stupid like most Pikachu. Thinking that he would stay, the people walked away. Once they were out of his sight, Mercurius walked away in the dim light alley the other way.
Once outside the alley, the Pikachu saw something weird. Black hair strands were strewn across the sidewalk in a weird matter. Once again, Mercurius felt the butterflies in his stomach. Something was defiantly not right here. It felt like he had gone too close to an iron wall. It was also the same feeling that he had earlier. These must be Azreals' hairs. He must have walked past here. And if he saw me, I'm in very big trouble, but if he did, wouldn't he have come over and rip me to pieces? That's odd.
The Pikachu sat in place and watched as the people went by. He waited until he saw one pair that were talking to each other. Then he got up and followed them, to see if he could hear any of the latest gossip from them. What he heard was disturbing.
"Did you hear about the murder?" the girl asked.
"No, what was it?" the older woman, probably her mom, asked her daughter.
"It was nasty. There was this guy, and he, like, who was, like, you know, was found dead, and like, they don't have any evidence that someone killed him."
Mercurius stood in place. This definitely sounds like Azreal. He has done such things like this before. If he's here, then where the hell is he? Mercurius sat there for a moment, thinking about that. He would have to look.
An ominous roar at the edge of his mind caught his attention. He turned his head very quickly to see a group of people chanting something. He ran over to see what was the matter. As he got closer, he could hear the people chanting, "Die witch, die! Die, die, die!" Mercurius watched, completely thunderstruck. Horrified, he ran over to see if he could help. As he got even closer, he could see a mob of about one hundred people. He watched hopelessly as an elderly lady got bludgeoned with sticks and boards. The lady clutched a small doll with pins stuck through it. He could automatically see what the problem might be. He had seen scenes of this nature before. People being accused of being witches, wizards etc, were put in iron cages and had salt poured on them, and they were left to suffer in their own horror.
Salt was one of the things that wizards hated the most, it made them feel more miserable than iron or certain plants or herbs did. The thought made a shiver run down his spine. The mob was beating her with iron bars and wooden sticks and hurling salt at her. One of the people grinned rancorously as he hurled a handful of salt at her, making her yelp out in pain, but all the sudden they stopped. One of them dropped his bag of salt and ran the others started to beat on her harder.
Mercurius also turned his head to listen. What he heard was like music to his ears. What he heard was police sirens, and they were approaching quickly. When they arrived, the words Pewter Police Patrol gleamed like they were newly polished. They patrolmen got out and started to break up the mob. One of them took out some pepper spray and started to spray it at the quickly diminishing mob. The lady got out of the clutches of the mob and started to approach the policeman.
"Thank you, mister, can you direct me to my house please," the lady asked. The policeman paid no heed and threw a tear bomb. The remains of the mob then ran off like a herd of wildebeest being chased by a hyena. Only then did the policeman turn to the lady.
"You're going to have to come with me. Interrogation purposes only. If you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about," the officer explained. He then helped her into her car and drove off, sirens blaring like angry bees' buzz.
IV
Igor sat in his lab, in the Colorado Rockies, like he had for about two years now. This lab was not much of a lab, for it looked very decrepit from the outside (mainly to make the lab seem not the least bit interesting to hikers that occasionally walked past the area). From the inside, however, it was a scientists dream, with everything from the basic technology like microscopes and Petri dishes, to space age technology like laser dentistry (for god knows what reason, but it may come in handy as Sampson said when he got it). He also had workers that worked with him, which could do anything for him anytime. They could get very annoying at times, (especially M'ling, who could get on your nerves at any given time) but they were good at what they did.
Sampson, head client of the building, was a smart person who was at a genius level of intelligence. Igor, being a nurse, was the only nurse that could nurse a bottle of whisky better than a person. Igor was also sitting in the corner, not moving. I wish I could retire, have no worries, no annoying M'ling, oh, that would be the life. I don't really think it will ever happen, though, not until I retire at least. Igor's wishing thoughts of retirement ceased as a door slammed close to him. He looked up the see the head doctor staring down at him. Igor gasped and stood up, catching his breath and brushing himself off.
"Well, hello there! What a pleasant surprise to see you here, doctor," Igor exclaimed. Sampson stared.
"Same here, Igor," the he said sarcastically. "You seem to be working very hard there. Show me what you've done." Igor hesitated.
"Umm…I've just been…umm…uhh…thinking. Yes, that's why nothing is done. I was thinking about my job. I was thinking about early retirement, so I could relax. I'm sick of being here, and I want to be away. Sampson, may I retire? I love it if you could let me do so." Sampson didn't seem proud of the fact that Igor would love him.
"No, you are my only useful worker I have. I need you to work for me," Sampson admitted, it was something he would never say if he wasn't in a situation like this. Both of them stared at each other like they had fifteen heads.
"What did you just say to me? I don't believe what you just said to me. All I do is sit around and get drunk five times or more a day. That's all I do. I don't know how you like me, but you obviously do. Sampson, you know I didn't even want this job, but you made me have it. I used to be a bum, a street person, and you ruined my life. I hate being a person, drafted like a soldier. Wouldn't you hate it too?" Igor s' eyes watered and his face was red with a released burst of anger. Sampson looked astounded at his vocal abilities.
"Igor." Sampson looked at him hard. "You said you would do it. I didn't force you to do it; it was your choice on your own terms. I didn't want people with potential to sit on the street and not be of any help to the world." Sampson hit the nearest bookshelf in a rage. From the top of it, something rattled and fell. Sampson gasped as he looked up. A container of Miracle Whip (Sampson's favorite condiment, he ate it on everything) fell to the ground. Inside, a baby embryo (no one knew why he kept embryos in there) fell out and skated across the floor. Sampson looked like he was about to fall over dead.
"OH NO! SHIT! MY EMBRYO COLLECTION ISN'T COMPLETE ANYMORE," he sobbed. Igor was trying his best not to laugh, but a few chuckles still escaped him. Sampson glared at him, then said hostelry, "it isn't funny. It's like losing a child. I had him for so long…GODDAMNIT, IT ISN'T FUNNY!" Igor just laughed harder.
"Sampson, it is just an embryo…why is it so damn important then, huh," Igor asked.
"It is so damn important because it is so damn important to my study. I needed it, but I also ruined it…I am such an idiot." Yes, you are quite an idiot, tinkering with unborn babies? That is probably illegal…that's why I didn't want the job in the first place. He was used to be just like me, I used to know him. When he met that girl…he became a doctor. And he made me be one too. Igor stopped to see Sampson eyeing him suspiciously.
"Igor. What are you doing? You seem to be staring into space, but that's just my guess." Sampson emphasized the end of the sentence with a sigh. "Well, lets just clean up this mess. It might take us a long time to get that embryo off the ground."